Surely a citation for someone's name is linked to a person.
No. It's linked to their name, not to the whole INDI record. The
Gedcom Personal Name structure is (emphasis mine):
PERSONAL_NAME_STRUCTURE: =
n NAME <NAME_PERSONAL> {1:1}
+1 NPFX <NAME_PIECE_PREFIX> {0:1}
+1 GIVN <NAME_PIECE_GIVEN> {0:1}
+1 NICK <NAME_PIECE_NICKNAME> {0:1}
+1 SPFX <NAME_PIECE_SURNAME_PREFIX> {0:1}
+1 SURN <NAME_PIECE_SURNAME> {0:1}
+1 NSFX <NAME_PIECE_SUFFIX> {0:1}
+1 <<SOURCE_CITATION>> {0:M}
+2 <<NOTE_STRUCTURE>> {0:M}
+2 <<MULTIMEDIA_LINK>> {0:M}
+1 <<NOTE_STRUCTURE>> {0:M}
As Lorna says, there may be situations when you want to cite a source against a complete INDI record -- if for example you've lifted the record wholesale from somebody else's tree and not verified it yourself -- but that is the exception rather than the rule. (Although you wouldn't think it, if you look at some Ancestry trees where stuff has been transplanted wholesale!
)
Does this mean that William Clegg's opinion is as right as anyone else's?
Not necessarily. I ordered the booklet because I thought it might be providing good advice, or it might not, but I wasn't prepared to comment on what I hadn't seen.
Unfortunately, the combination of:
- * some very odd guidance on interpreting sources (e.g. the meaning of marriage residence)
* an evident unfamiliarity with Family Historian -- I suspect the author used the programme just enough to produce the booklet, but not enough to realise that there are faster and quicker ways of doing much of what he documents
* a lack of understanding of the underlying (Gedcom) standard -- e.g. he advocates putting 'Today's date' in the Entry Date filed for a citation, but Gedcom states that this is: "The date that this event data was entered into the original source document", so for a birth certificate this would be the birth registration date... Although more on this later.
* advice that isn't easily generalised -- to adapt what Adrian has said, William Clegg is providing a recipe for making bread but leaving it to you to work out blindfolded whether the same approach applies to making pastry (hint: no). Or as you said, he's providing one version of What and Where but not Why, and if you don't get told Why it's very hard to extrapolate to other source types.
mean that I can't value William Clegg's opinion as highly as I might value the opinion of somebody who I know for certain is an experienced genealogist and Family Historian user. (Sometimes, I suck my teeth and shut up when I see advice on here that I don't agree with -- I remind myself that not everyone has the same priorities as me... But I only do that if I know the person providing advice is an experienced genealogist and FH user -- if it's arrant nonsense from somebody with no track record I will say that if I have time.)
(I'll note that William Clegg only seems ever to have written two booklets and no other genealogy guidance -- so he may well be an absolute whizz at genealogy and finding his way around the other programme -- but from the evidence of this booklet, I can't recommend using it.)
And that I shouldn't really be bothering about getting it fully right (As there is no right) and just make sure I do it the same for everyone
Absolutely you should be bothered, and there is a 'right' -- but your 'right' will be different to mine, and Adrian's, and ... It depends on many things:
Who we're doing the research for, and why we're doing it.
- In my case, it's for my own satisfaction but also for other researchers who I will never meet but who hopefully will find something I've done, verify it for themselves using the source citations that I've provided, and maybe in passing think: that's a damn fine piece of work. (I doubt it will ever happen, but I can dream).
My friend on the other hand is doing his research to understand his background in a very small area, share info with his family and the local history society, and enjoy himself solving puzzles.
Another friend is doing a One Place study of a small Pembrokeshire village, so it isn't just the family linkages that matter, but the history and location of distinct buildings and institutions...
And my sister (who is researching her husband's family) is doing it because he wants to meet every one of his first and second cousins -- I suppose everyone needs an ambition! And he was the 17th child of a couple who were each part of a family with nearly 20 children, and ditto their parents, so there are an awful lot of cousins -- I reckon he meets a cousin every day unknowingly as he moves around Birmingham!
So I'm focused on analysing and documenting my sources according to a recognised standard (Elizabeth Shown Mills,
Evidence Explained , following the BCG Genealogical Standards including the Genealogical Proof Standard, never assuming anything, never recording anything in FH until I'm confident I can make the case -- and if that means writing a 10 page document for difficult cases explaining my reasoning, so be it. And I can't use most of the Source fields in FH because they just don't fit ESM so I only use
- * Title (ESM-style source citation)
* Short Title (quick finding aid for personal use only)
* Type (quick filtering again plus some plugins expect specific values)
* Text from Source (a complete transcription, usually, which I'll include on my website -- but not perhaps if it's a book or a very long Welsh will 
)
* Notes "("Almost illegible", X's name is shown as AX", "Oral interview conducted by telephone and not everything was audible -- questionable elements indicated by [?...?]". "The redacted person on the record is probably Y", "Translation into English was done by T".)
My friend enjoys the thrill of the hunt -- he finds ESM too complex and prefers to cite things more simply, as long as he can still identify the source he used; and it's important to him that people who aren't family historians can understand what his tree is telling them.
The One Place study makes extensive use of Place records to record building history -- Addresses aren't used because you can't associate any data with them, or geocode them. And the sources are almost specific to a single location (parish) and there are very few of them, so their citations can be greatly simplified.
And my sister is focused on a small set of very recent and regional sources -- she's never going to be looking at Tithe Maps or Land Tax records, or even early censuses...
All of which means that we're recording very different data in very different ways, but all (as it happens) in Family Historian.
How we plan to 'display' our data
I publish my work on my own website (which isn't based on any of the FH reports or website generation) so I'm not interested in the FH reporting or books options -- but they have quirks e.g. where/how/if witnesses are shown, so if you're going to use certain reports, you won't want to use witnesses. (I don't use witnesses either -- I don't find them necessary but others use them.) I also export 'cousin bait' to as many places as I can (more later). I combine Address and Place into the Place field, so that I can geocode down to building level.
My friend prints out reports to take to family gatherings and local history gatherings. He has a website as well which I maintain so I insist he has some consistency with the way I use FH, such as not using witnesses -- but he doesn't need to be consistent in source naming, for example. His are simple, mine are complex.
The One Place Study doesn't use reports, but cuts-and-pastes data into its web pages. (I'm working on automating this... in my copious free time).
And my sister never publishes anything -- just uses it to identify targets on whose door they can knock within two hours travel. Amazingly -- at least to me -- this is almost always successful/welcome, and expands the pool of targets.
Where we need to export our data
There are two use cases for exporting our data:
- * Exporting data to e.g a website which only imports specific formats -- Mike Tate's Export Gedcom plugin has this pretty well sorted as long as you're willing to understand the options.
* The nuclear "my programme is going away" option -- probably most prominent for those who have experienced this once. Again Mike Tate's plugin has this sorted -- and in the event that the nuclear option needs to be invoked, I'm pretty sure that he (or a successor) will update the plugin.
If you really truly and absolutely only want to use Gedcom compliant fields, understand
this and then avoid using the related features -- no Named Lists, no Source Types, no Witnesses, no Custom Sentences, no second place in Immigration and Emigration facts, no Flags, no Marriage Status... You'll probably get the drift: what do you value now versus what might not export exactly the same in future. Bearing in mind that the Gedcom compliance of many commercial products is dubious, so what you export may not be imported.
Me, I don't worry about it -- I decide what's useful FOR ME RIGHT NOW and use that.
What to do?
Internal consistency, as you have identified, is vital, as is thinking through how you want to do things in advance so you don't end up with a load of rework. I spent six months doing so before I embarked on my own 'redo' (and I'm still finding things I hadn't thought of. But -- for reasons given above, my solution will not be yours. So first you need to think through what matters TO YOU and then work out (or ask) how to achieve it, bit by bit. None of us will have an out-of-the box answer for you, however experienced we are -- tell us what matters and we'll jointly grope towards what will work FOR YOU. But none of us would pretend to offer one-size-fits all advice.
where would you put the date you found the information if not in the entry date
As always, it depends. What do I really get of FH once I've put that date in?
- * As per the Gedcom standard, "The date that this event data was entered into the original source document"? So e.g birth registration date. But I'm going to transcribe t he source anyway, and make a Note if there's something notable about the registration date.
* The date I entered the source information -- as Mike Tate has said, FH does a good job of keeping track of that already, but if you want to enter it manually, just be aware that your choice may not make sense if it's imported elsewhere.
* Personally I've never needed to know when I added a source to FH -- but it's good genealogical practice to record when you accessed a particular record (on a website or in a physical repository or in the filing system of a long-defunct maiden aunt) if only to let other genealogists know why they may not be able to see the same record (website lost licences to publish the records/specialist archive closed down and I haven't tracked where their records went/maiden aunts nearest and dearest had a bonfire of all her rubbish papers in the garden).
So I don't enter it anywhere except in my ESM compliant-ish citation (Long Title).
... for instance my dad owned and stayed in a hotel, with a street name and number, so where to put the hotel name becomes a bit of an issue. ...
Not an issue for me -- I want geocoding down to address level, so everything to go in the Place field. Some people will have systematised rules for what they put in Address versus Place; some people use Address but include the Address in the Place field as well. Again it depends on what you want to achieve.
. While I am here where would you put the date you found the information if not in the entry date? I assume you need this information for certain things as you may have only got sight of the information once and knowing where and when would be an advantage at some times.
).
rather than recording information and enjoying finding out "Who was who?" and "What was what?" and for me that is what genealogy is all about.
.